Dr Stanley Macaden, IAPC Lead, Project India of the International Collaborative
In association with Indian Association of Palliative Care (IAPC), the International
Collaborative for Best Care for the Dying Person conducted a foundation course at
Bangalore Baptist Hospital (BBH), from January 11 to 13, 2016.
There were 30 participants from 16 palliative care centres from various parts of India.
Prof John Ellershaw, Chair, International Collaborative and Dr Susie Wilkinson, Liaison
Lead, International Collaborative were the resource persons from the Marie Curie
Palliative Care Institute, Liverpool, UK.
The programme was supported by the Makhijas (Hong Kong) and the Kurian
Foundation (USA), and ably facilitated by the BBH team.
The course was well-structured and informative. It included a lot of group work. There
was a good session on legal issues in end-of-life care facilitated by Mr K G Raghavan,
senior lawyer and Dr Pradeep Rangappa, an Intensivist.
The programme concluded with an action plan for the year 2016. Here are some of the
salient decisions:
- All centres have agreed to participate in the pilot study and expressed commitment to roll out the programme in their respective centres.
- The common documentation of care during the last hours and days of life will be called “Guidance and Care Plan for the Dying” (GCP-D).
- Prof Ellershaw will send necessary documentation as a work package of the International Collaborative titled “Project India”.
- Dr Stanley Macaden will continue as the IAPC Lead for “Project India”.
- A steering group will proceed with permission to use the documentation provided by the Collaborative. Karunashraya will co-ordinate the validation of the content at
- a few palliative care units.
- This will be published in the Indian Journal of Palliative Care in its April 2016 issue.
- After this publication, administrative and ethics committee approval will be obtained from all centres to conduct a programme of quality improvement and
- research in providing care for the dying.
- The data collected over a year from the pilot centres will then be analysed and published in the Indian Journal of palliative Care.
- The results will be shared with all other stakeholders and used for advocacy with the Government and Legislature to create an end-of-life care policy
- and enabling laws.
All participants agreed to meet again at the pre-conference workshop on “End-of-Life
Care” in Pune on the February 11, 2016.